


It's the Heart of You, I know It In My Bones

by stardustedknuckles



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Timeline, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Pre-Relationship, Trauma Recovery, feeling seen, set during ep 117
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27847454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: Beau's not ready to talk, because when they do it'll be about the letter and she's got some work to do first. But not speaking doesn't mean she can't be loud and clear about what matters.Written for December prompt challenge day 2: bow
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 8
Kudos: 150





	It's the Heart of You, I know It In My Bones

Her swords didn't need polishing, but the familiarity that came with the ritual afforded Yasha a kind of anchor for her racing thoughts and emotions.

At some point, she thought dimly, it might become necessary for her to accept that she might be panicking just a little.

Losing Molly had been enough to send her spiraling - never back to who she was, never that version of her in his name - but into a kind of seclusion of servitude. The Storm Lord had provided her with ways to keep herself occupied, had perhaps in some ways even guided her to the right people who reminded her of _Molly's_ people - the ones she'd promised to return to. They weren't hers then, not yet.

But they were hers when she'd promised again, this time to stay, and the fact of them in her heart was as comforting as it was terrifying. The things she loved had an awful tendency to die.

Most days, that loss was a distant fear. The nein made it easier for Yasha to pull herself out of old thought patterns and more than once, she'd wondered whether Molly had decided to stay with this group of people for her.

After all, it wasn't like they couldn't have gone off on their own. They were enough, together, and some shadowed part of Yasha spoke up to remind her that she was enough now, too, all by herself.

But that way, she knew, lay nothing good.

"Mrow."

Yasha startled, overcorrecting and accidentally jamming the heel of her hand against the edge of Skin Gorger's blade. "Shit," she said, then, "Hi, Mittens."

Yasha was aware that the cats in here were of the Fey and didn't work the way normal animals did, but she wasn't entirely certain of the way normal animals worked, either, so the idea that one of the dozens of spectral cats might like her best didn't seem too strange.

Blood rose to the cut in Yasha's hand but didn't spill, and Mittens when she reached to pet them purred happily as they turned in a circle. Yasha chuckled as she tried to keep up. "I think this goes better if you hold still. No? Okay that's fine too." As she ran her hand down that indistinct spine she spotted something between Mittens's amber paws. Puzzled, Yasha paused petting to pick it up and examine it.

It was a small box made of what looked like folded parchment paper, with writing all along the bottom portion and a separate fitted parchment lid that was all white except for a kind of squiggle drawn in ink on the top. Underneath it with an arrow pointing up was the word "bow" in familiar handwriting.

"Is this for me?" she asked. Mittens gave her a cheerful sort of sound and vanished, their purr seeming to hang in the air a moment longer. "Thank you," Yasha said belatedly to the empty air, and then she settled her back against the wall and gently pulled the paper lid off the paper box.

For a moment, it was hard to tell what she was looking at. Pieces of silver, polished enough that the letters on the paper surrounding them caught and distorted in the metal and made Yasha's brain hurt to process. She tipped the contents gently into her hand, and once she comprehended what they were she spent another second trying to understand the why of them.

They were earrings, small and sturdy hoops with a delicate chain connecting them to long, thin cylinders of shiny metal that tapered to points at the end. Simple and masterfully crafted, they winked and sparkled on her palm as the metal caught and released the light from the magic orbs above.

They were beautiful, and Yasha held one to rub her thumb along the silky smooth shaft of it as she looked in the bottom of the box. In capital letters were the words "unfold me."

Yasha found the flap where the paper was tucked and quickly but carefully undid the delicate work until at last she was holding what looked like a regular piece of parchment riddled with sharp creases and addressed to her.

_Yasha,_

_I don't actually know if the cats in here deliver things they didn't make, but if you're reading this then I guess they do (and I guess I still don't know)._

_I do know that today sucked for you more than anybody else, and I'm sorry I'm a chicken and I can't talk to you yet. I want to, soon I hope, and even though I know you probably understand, I also had to find some way to let you know that I saw you. And I think I needed to feel like I tried to help in some way._

_I'm not really sure what earrings can do, but here goes._

_I bought these a long time ago because they made me think of you when you were gone. It's kind of dumb, but they look like lightning a little if you hold them up. I wanted to ask Jester to wrap them in something nice, but I couldn't think of a way to ask without giving the game away. Not that I'm hiding anything from her, I just feel like the next time I put any of this in words, I'd rather it be to the person they're about. I used to make these boxes and little animals at the Cobalt Soul when Zeenoth got boring. I got really good at them._

_Anyway, you're staying with us, so I don't need them and I wanted to give them to you instead. Don't feel obligated to wear them. Or keep them. I mean they're a little cheesy maybe, so it's fine. Mostly I just wanted to say something without sounding like an idiot._

_I just read all of this again and nevermind, I still sound like an idiot. But it's getting late and if I start over again I won't be able to make myself give it to a cat._

_Goodnight,_

_-Beau_

Yasha stared at the note for several seconds, feeling slightly off-balance at how quickly her thoughts had ground to a halt. Not in the same way they did when she was trying to talk to Beau, not in the way that left her feeling ineloquent and anxious - it felt…like a kind of peace. Like the moment after blowing out a lantern before bed, when the promise of sleep settled on her in the dark.

She held the earrings up and let them dangle, watching the light catch and sparkle and - yes, they did seemed to crackle in their own way. It was easy to forget their light was borrowed and not their own.

Yasha sat with her sword across her crossed legs and Beau's gift cradled in her palm, staring without really seeing until a very tiny sound caught her attention from below. She blinked down at her sword and blinked again, stunned when more tears tumbled down to join the one winking at her from the metal of her sword. Yasha scrubbed her arm over her eyes and found herself smiling when she looked back at the earrings.

The thing was, she wouldn't have run. Loneliness still called to her sometimes, yes, drew itself around her in a crowd and made her feel separate from her family in vast and terrifying ways.

But that always been true for her, and the promise she'd made to stay was because they made her better. After a lifetime of "enough," Yasha was ready to stay for better.

But loneliness was a friend she shared with many, perhaps with none more than Beau. If anyone knew about running and old habits, if anyone knew the patterns and reactions to watch out for when it came to isolation, it was Beau. Yasha could see the scars of abandonment Beau hid as clearly as the ones that she wore so proudly on her skin. Beau stood at the beginning of things and saw their end, and by rights her response to understanding that Yasha's grief wasn't something she could fix should have been terror.

In fact it was, once.

But this time, Beau had assessed her scars and counted the score, and then she'd chosen to give the greatest gift she was capable of. Beau had given Yasha her trust - it was nestled here in her hand, as sure as the silver and twice as bright.

Yasha curled her fingers slowly, protectively around the earrings and rested her head against the wall. She closed her eyes and when she breathed deep, her lungs felt like they filled completely for the first time in a long, long while.

After a few minutes spent drifting, Yasha gathered herself and stood. She had one more thing to take care of before sleep.

* * *

Beau managed _not_ to fling the glowing, ghostly cat that appeared on her chest without warning, but it was a near thing. 

"Holy fuck," she groaned, sitting up on her hands and trying to breathe properly. "Fucking magic cat, you can't knock?" The cat ignored her and rolled over happily on their back, purring. Beau reached to pet them and peered closer. "What's in your mouth?"

She reached out and plucked a folded piece of paper from the cat's jaws, frowning as she groped behind her for the magic button that made the lights do the thing. She winced at the brightness and when she looked again, the cat was gone. "Fuckin' weird," she muttered.

Well, it wasn't like she'd been sleeping. Too busy thinking about Yasha and whether she liked her gift, if she'd even gotten it. Oh gods, what if the cats took everything to _Caleb_ instead, like some kind of lost and found shit?

She was so caught up in the anxiety of it that the fact of a delivery - to her, from said cats - didn't register until she took in the three words printed on the paper in a light, flowing script:

"They Do. -Yasha"

Beau slapped the wall again and fell back against her pillow with a wide, stupid grin that she caught in the mirror above in the moment before the lights dimmed completely.


End file.
